How Do Governments' Policy Priorities Change as the Energy Transition Progresses? A Cross-Country Comparison.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Ollier L
PROVIDER: S-EPMC11318110 | biostudies-literature | 2024
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
How Do Governments' Policy Priorities Change as the Energy Transition Progresses? A Cross-Country Comparison.
Ollier Lana L Melliger Marc M Metz Florence F
Journal of comparative policy analysis 20231130 3-4
Today's energy transition is marked by two key processes: the maturation of the renewable electricity system, and the declining fit between the new and incumbent electricity systems. Given these processes, how do governments change their policy priorities as the transition progresses? Our comparative analysis of six EU member states shows that governments dynamically adapt their policy priorities based on changes in their socio-technical systems. Our initial findings suggest that governments fol ...[more]
Similar Datasets
Project description:BackgroundForeign aid has been shown to be favourably biased towards small countries. This study investigated whether country size bias also occurs in national malaria policy and development assistance from international agencies.MethodsData from publicly available sources were collected with countries as observational units. The exploratory data analysis was based on the conceptual framework with socio-economic, environmental and institutional parameters. The strength of relationships was estimated by the Pearson and polychoric correlation coefficients. The correlation matrix was explored by factor analysis.ResultsMalaria burden is strongly correlated with GDP per capita, total health expenditure per capita, HDI; moderately with latitude, weakly with elevation, urban population share, per capita funding from the Global Fund, PMI USAID, UK government and UNICEF. Small country status is strongly correlated with population size, land area, island status; moderately with development assistance received per capita, weakly with funding per capita from Global Fund, government NMP and PMI USAID. Policy score 1, a variable derived from our factor analysis and related to malaria endemicity, is significantly strongly correlated with the malaria burden, moderately with HDI, GDP per capita, total health expenditure per capita, PMI USAID funding; weakly with island status, urban population share, latitude, coastal population share, total government expenditure and trade openness, Global Fund funding, World Bank funding, UK government funding, and UNICEF funding per capita. Policy score 2, which captures variation not related to malaria endemicity, is significantly weakly related to the ICRG index, PMI USAID funding per capita and small country status.ConclusionsThe results suggest that malaria burden and economic development are bidirectionally related. Economic development can contribute to a reduction in the malaria burden. Country size does not negatively impact malaria burden, but it does account for greater development assistance per capita from selected international agencies. National malaria policy is associated with parameters related to public governance and is modified in small countries. Small country bias is present in the distribution of socio-economic resources and the allocation of foreign aid. Small countries are characterized by distinct environmental and socio-political properties.
| S-EPMC7856723 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundForeign aid continues to play an essential role in health sector development in low-resource countries, particularly in terms of providing a vital portion of their health expenditures. However, the relationship between foreign aid allocation and malaria policy formulation and/or implementation among state aid recipients remains unknown.MethodsPublicly available data were collected with the country as observational unit to set up the conceptual framework. The quality and strength of relationships between socioeconomic, environmental and institutional parameters were estimated by Pearson and polychoric correlations. A correlation matrix was explored by factor analysis.ResultsThe first policy index captured policy variation related to malaria burden and development assistance. Funding per capita from all international agencies was correlated with malaria burden, whereas governmental funding for national malaria programmes per capita was not. The second policy index captured variation beyond malaria endemicity and country size. Variation was found to be related to international country risk instruments and funding from the United States Agency for International Development President's Malaria Initiative.ConclusionsNot all agencies involved in malaria policy allocate assistance in alignment with the gross domestic product and malaria burden. While the country size does not negatively impact malaria burden, it does account for greater development assistance per capita from selected international agencies. Novel policy indexes describe complex relationships between malaria policy, international foreign aid and socioeconomic parameters. Small countries have distinct environmental and sociopolitical properties.
| S-EPMC8201720 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Background and objectivesGlobally, a number of countries have developed guidelines that describe the design and conduct of economic evaluations as part of health technology assessment (HTA) or pharmacoeconomic analysis for decision making. The current scoping review was undertaken with an objective to summarize the recommendations made on methods of economic evaluation by the national healthcare economic evaluation (HEE) guidelines.MethodologyA comprehensive search was undertaken in the website repositories of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomic and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) and Guide to Economic Analysis and Research (GEAR), and websites of national HTA agencies and ministries of health of individual countries. All guidelines in the English language were included in this review. Data were extracted with respect to general and methodological characteristics, and a descriptive analysis of recommendations made across the countries was undertaken.ResultsOverall, our review included 31 national HEE guidelines, published between 1997 and August 2020. Nearly half (45%) of the guidelines targeted the evaluation of pharmaceuticals. The nature of the guidelines was either mandatory (31%), recommendatory (42%), or voluntary (16%). There was a substantial consensus among the guidelines on several key principles, including type of economic evaluation (cost-utility analysis), time horizon of the analysis (long enough), health outcome measure (quality-adjusted life-years) and use of sensitivity analyses. The recommendations on study perspective, comparator, discount rate and type of costs to be included (particularly the inclusion of indirect costs) varied widely.ConclusionDespite similarity in the overall processes, variation in several recommendations given by various national HEE guidelines was observed. This is perhaps unsurprising given the differences in the health systems and financing mechanisms, capacity of local researchers, and data availability. This review offers important lessons and a starting point for countries that are planning to develop their own HEE guidelines.
| S-EPMC8333164 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Coronavirus has claimed the lives of over half a million people world-wide and this death toll continues to rise rapidly each day. In the absence of a vaccine, non-clinical preventative measures have been implemented as the principal means of limiting deaths. However, these measures have caused unprecedented disruption to daily lives and economic activity. Given this developing crisis, the potential for a second wave of infections and the near certainty of future pandemics, lessons need to be rapidly gleaned from the available data. We address the challenges of cross-country comparisons by allowing for differences in reporting and variation in underlying socio-economic conditions between countries. Our analyses show that, to date, differences in policy interventions have out-weighed socio-economic variation in explaining the range of death rates observed in the data. Our epidemiological models show that across 8 countries a further week long delay in imposing lockdown would likely have cost more than half a million lives. Furthermore, those countries which acted more promptly saved substantially more lives than those that delayed. Linking decisions over the timing of lockdown and consequent deaths to economic data, we reveal the costs that national governments were implicitly prepared to pay to protect their citizens as reflected in the economic activity foregone to save lives. These 'price of life' estimates vary enormously between countries, ranging from as low as around $100,000 (e.g. the UK, US and Italy) to in excess of $1million (e.g. Denmark, Germany, New Zealand and Korea). The lowest estimates are further reduced once we correct for under-reporting of Covid-19 deaths.
| S-EPMC7400753 | biostudies-literature
Project description:We examine the roles of sub-national and national governments in Canada and the United States vis-à-vis the protective public health response in the onset phase of the global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This period was characterized in both countries by incomplete information as well as by uncertainty regarding which level of government should be responsible for which policies. The crisis represents an opportunity to study how national and sub-national governments respond to such policy challenges. In this article, we present a unique dataset that catalogues the policy responses of US states and Canadian provinces as well as those of the respective federal governments: the Protective Policy Index (PPI). We then compare the United States and Canada along several dimensions, including the absolute values of sub-national levels of the index relative to the total protections enjoyed by citizens, the relationship between early threat (as measured by the mortality rate near the start of the public health crisis) and the evolution of the PPI, and finally the institutional and legislative origins of the protective health policies. We find that the sub-national contribution to policy is more important for both the United States and Canada than are their national-level policies, and it is unrelated in scope to our early threat measure. We also show that the institutional origin of the policies as evidenced by the COVID-19 response differs greatly between the two countries and has implications for the evolution of federalism in each.
| S-EPMC9400820 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The Disease Control Priorities program (DCP) has pioneered the use of economic evidence in health. The theory of change (ToC) put forward by Norheim is a further welcome and necessary step towards translating DCP evidence into better priority setting in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We also agree that institutionalising evidence for informed priority-setting processes is crucial. Unfortunately, there have been missed opportunities for the DCP program to challenge ill-judged global norms about opportunity costs and too little respect has been shown for the wider set of local circumstances that may enable, or disable, the productive application of the DCP evidence base. We suggest that the best way forward for the global health community is a new platform that integrates the many existing development initiatives and that is driven by countries' asks.
| S-EPMC6462203 | biostudies-other
Project description:ObjectiveUnderstanding public policy makers' priorities for addressing youth substance use and the factors that influence these priorities can inform the dissemination and implementation of strategies that promote evidence-based decision making. This study characterized the priorities of policy makers in substance use agencies of U.S. states and counties for addressing youth substance use, the factors that influenced these priorities, and the differences in priorities and influences between state and county policy makers.MethodsIn 2020, a total of 122 substance use agency policy makers from 35 states completed a Web-based survey (response rate=22%). Respondents rated the priority of 14 issues related to youth substance use and the extent to which nine factors influenced these priorities. Data were analyzed as dichotomous and continuous variables and for state and county policy makers together and separately.ResultsThe highest priorities for youth substance use were social determinants of substance use (87%), adverse childhood experiences and childhood trauma (85%), and increasing access to school-based substance use programs (82%). The lowest priorities were increasing access to naloxone for youths (49%), increasing access to medications for opioid use disorder among youths (49%), and deimplementing non-evidence-based youth substance use programs (41%). The factors that most influenced priorities were budget issues (80%) and state legislature (69%), federal (67%), and governor priorities (65%). Issues related to program implementation and deimplementation were significantly higher priorities for state than for county policy makers.ConclusionsThese findings can inform the tailoring of dissemination and implementation strategies to account for the inner- and outer-setting contexts of substance use agencies.
| S-EPMC9704547 | biostudies-literature
Project description:ObjectiveTo understand the different Na menu labelling approaches that have been considered by state and local policymakers in the USA and to summarise the evidence on the relationship between Na menu labelling and Na content of menu items offered by restaurants or purchased by consumers.DesignProposed and enacted Na menu labelling laws at the state and local levels were reviewed using legal databases and an online search, and a narrative review of peer-reviewed literature was conducted on the relationship between Na menu labelling and Na content of menu items offered by restaurants or purchased by consumers.SettingLocal and state jurisdictions in the USA.ParticipantsNot applicable.ResultsBetween 2000 and 2020, thirty-eight laws - eleven at the local level and twenty-seven at the state level - were proposed to require Na labelling of restaurant menu items. By 2020, eight laws were enacted requiring chain restaurants to label the Na content of menu items. Five studies were identified that evaluated the impact of Na menu labelling on Na content of menu items offered by restaurants or purchased by consumers in the USA. The studies had mixed results: two studies showed a statistically significant association between Na menu labelling and reduced Na content of menu items; three showed no effects.ConclusionData suggest that Na menu labelling may reduce Na in restaurant menu items, but further rigorous research evaluating Na menu labelling effects on Na content of menu items, as well as on the Na content in menu items purchased by consumers, is needed.
| S-EPMC10195557 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The growing influence of regional governments in shaping climate policy and driving the renewable energy transition in multilevel democracies like Spain provides incentives for parties in favor of decentralization to emphasize these issues. Recent research has shown that such parties act as climate pioneers at the regional tier of government, driven by their desire to assert stronger subnational authority. To investigate these dynamics at the national level, this article examines the manifestos of the parties that won seats in the 2016, 2019, and 2023 Spanish national elections. The empirical findings suggest that parties are more likely to prioritize climate change and the renewable energy transition if they are pro-decentralization. By emphasizing how multilevel governance strengthens these priorities through party competition and the quest for regional autonomy, this article fills an important gap spanning decentralization and policy preferences related to climate and renewable energy.
| S-EPMC11525191 | biostudies-literature
Project description:PurposeAmyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive motor impairment leading to early death. Religiousness is one of the factors potentially alleviating the psychological burden of patients. However, its role might vary according to cultural context. Our study aimed to analyze religiosity, and its clinical, psychological and socio-demographic correlates in ALS patients and controls, comparing two European countries with different cultural backgrounds.Methods268 Polish and German ALS patients, including 18 with locked-in syndrome (LIS) and 198 healthy controls (HC) were interviewed about religiousness, quality of life (Qol), depression, functional status and pain. A follow-up was conducted on 71 patients.ResultsPolish subjects had a significantly higher level of public, private and general religiosity than the German sample. Importantly, we found no difference in total and public religiousness between ALS patients and HC within either population. Only the private religiousness was significantly higher in German patients compared to controls. In the same sample, private religiousness correlated with functional impairment due to disease progression. In ALS groups and LIS patients, religiousness did not correlate with any disease-associated factors: disease duration, pain, Qol or depression. Follow-up comparisons in the ALS group revealed worsening functional status, increased depression and no significant change in religiosity.ConclusionsReligiosity was linked to the cultural background rather than ALS. Generally, it did not correlate with clinical, psychological and socio-demographic parameters and was stable throughout disease progression. The only exception was the relationship between the functional decline and private religiosity among German patients.
| S-EPMC10328897 | biostudies-literature